


The Long Stairway

by azephirin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Caretaking, Comment Fic, Insomnia, M/M, Meme, Reading, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 03-04 Hiatus, Sleep, Sleep Deprivation, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-04
Updated: 2010-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>I would like to follow you up the long stairway again & become the boat that would row you back carefully, a flame in two cupped hands to where your body lies beside me....</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Stairway

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://girlmostlikely.livejournal.com/profile)[**girlmostlikely**](http://girlmostlikely.livejournal.com/)'s [H/C meme](http://tvm.livejournal.com/195958.html) and originally posted [here](http://tvm.livejournal.com/195958.html?thread=5017974#t5017974). Title, cut text, and summary from "[Variations on the Word 'Sleep](http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1093.html),'" by Margaret Atwood.

That first long night, he doesn't want to get up—just wants to stay where he is, lying next to Dean, who is battered and silent but whole, scarred and beautiful. He lies there for hours, not sleeping, running light fingers up and down Dean's back, not enough to wake his brother, just enough to remind himself that Dean is there. Alive. Sam's.

Dean sleeps what looks like peacefully, and Sam hopes against hope that it really is—he needs it, deserves it. When finally nature calls too urgently to dismiss, Sam kisses Dean's upraised palm, lets his cheek brush Dean's fingers, then gets up.

When he comes back to bed a few minutes later, Dean's awake—quiet, but with eyes shining in the dark.

— ◆ —

 

It keeps on like that: Dean rests at night but Sam can't, just stays awake and watches him. He didn't sleep much during the year Dean was gone, so he figures it's not that much of a change, except this kind of insomnia is a lot more pleasant. But if he gets up during the night—bathroom, water, walk around the parking lot, whatever—Dean is without fail awake when he gets back. Uncomplaining, not scared, not exactly—but definitely watchful. Waiting.

He always falls right back asleep when Sam lies down again.

Sam dozes in the car, naps sometimes when they stop early for the day and have a few hours in the afternoon. It goes on like that until Dean wakes up unexpectedly one night, looks at Sam with drowsy exasperation, and says, "Man, you have got to get some sleep."

Sam glances at him from the other side of the bed, where he's propped up with _Gravity's Rainbow_. "I'm fine, Dean."

"Yeah, bullshit. You keep this up, you're going to start hallucinating, and then I'll have to deal with your ass, and I'll be pissed." Dean nods at the book. "Put that doorstop down and turn off the light."

"Dean—"

"Sam."

It's possible that Sam closes the 700-some-page book with more emphasis than is required. But he does close it.

"Now take off your damn jeans and however many shirts you've got on—"

"Dean!"

"And put on some fucking sweatpants or whatever, because no one ever got a good night's sleep in jeans."

It's possible that Sam rifles through the duffle more messily than is required. But he does find some sweats.

Back in bed, he turns off the light, rolls onto his side, and prepares to lie there for however many hours until the alarm goes off.

He doesn't expect Dean's warmth to arrange itself behind him, for one of Dean's arms to come across his chest and wrap around him, for Dean's breath to gently tickle the back of his neck. Some scared, knotted-up part of Sam begins to loosen, to relax as his body does. His big brother is here and will be here. Sam puts his hand over Dean's, and Dean doesn't complain.

Sam doesn't fall asleep for a while, but he does sleep a couple of hours that night, a couple of hours the next. And then, three days later, he wakes up in golden afternoon sunlight; God knows how long he slept. Dean is sitting in bed next to him, the TV on low to _Citizen Kane_, and he smiles and pushes Sam's hair out of his eyes as Sam blinks his way awake.

Sam knows, for the first time he can remember, that they're going to be OK.


End file.
